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October 23, 2015

Seven splendily festive vintage Halloween recipes

Well, hello there, my dears, I almost didn't see you over the mountain of pumpkin spice everything and festive treats that I've been whipping up this month! :D

I jest, of course, but only slightly. Between the stellar array of autumn produce that is grown locally in the Okanagan (the succulent, sweet pears alone are enough to make you weep with joy!), Canadian Thanksgiving on the second Monday of the month, numerous family birthdays (including both my little sister's and my maternal grandma's), our wedding anniversary on the 14th, and Halloween, there's usually more fabulous food on hand at our house in October than during December - or at least an equal quantity to that month's!

As much as I adore and love cooking + baking for all of those deeply special days, as you might guess (if you're familiar with my unending passion for October 31st), there's no day of the whole year that I enjoy creating festive food for more than Halloween and with it looming every nearer (just five more days to go - *excited squeal!!!*), I thought it was high time I shared a few new (to this blog, I mean) vintage Halloween posts that I've rounded up over the past year.

Vintage Halloween/strongly autumnal recipes (save for Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie related ones) aren't the easiest thing to come by in general, especially online. The volume that has been kindly shared by folks who upload vintage recipes from cookbooks, cookery booklets, magazines and other sources isn't exactly bursting at the seems, so when I do encounter one in my online travels at any point in the year, I always tuck it away instantly to save for when the tail end of October rolls around again next (you can find all past vintage Halloween recipes that I've shared so far anytime on my Vintage Recipes page).

This year I've been able to find seven marvelously fun Halloween themed or appropriate recipes, each of which can be modified if need, to accommodate a wide range of dietary needs. I hope that you really enjoy any of these that you try out and that you enjoy seeing all of them as much as I loved sourcing them.

Once again Crisco is at the heart of another delicious vintage recipe - this time a festively fun Halloween themed mincemeat cakes recipe from 1936. If shortening isn't your thing, as I always like to mention when it makes an appearance here, by all means feel free to swap it out for butter, margarine, or your favourite suitable cooking fat.

This page contains various other recipes, too, which are not explicitly Halloween-y, but sound like they'd make for good, stick-to-your ribs comfort food for fall and winter all the same. The pumpkin face topped cakes (which are pretty much like a basic cupcake with mincemeat included in the batter) are just adorable and I especially loved that this page dated to the 1930s, as I've not found many Halloween recipes from that decade online over the years.

No photo or date accompanies this recipe mid-century recipes for Halloween Gelatin Salad, but based on the fonts and ingredients used here, as well as the present of an apostrophe in the word "Halloween", I would place it as being from the 1930s or 40s, though it could be a touch newer than that. I've always adored Jell-O salads that included carrots and think that this would be a fun, appealing choice for Halloween, especially if you gave it a spooky festive name like "Hair and Brains Salad”, in reference to the shredded carrots and walnuts.

From the easy to replicate spider web design on the icing that tops it to the very name - Devil's Food Cake - itself, this festive and seriously delicious looking cake is an ideal choice for Halloween. Be it folks aged five to ninety-five, I've rarely encountered anyone who didn't love a slice of luxurious Devil's Food Cake, so it really is an awesome choice for a Halloween get-together (you can easily make it in cupcake form, too, if that serves your needs better - and if you're sending a youngster off to class with a dessert for a school Halloween party, it's certainly a handier and more portable way to serve Devil's Food Cake).

Though the ingredient combination at work in these adorable 1950s Halloween Sandwiches might raise a few 21st century eyebrows, don't let that deter you. Simply copy the concept and instead fill these festive little sandwiches with whatever your heart desires.

Singularly, or any combination of, Nutella, peanut butter or other nut butters, dulce de leche, orange coloured varieties of jam or marmalade, lemon curd, Biscoff spread, and apple butter all make seasonally appropriate sandwich filling sweet choices, if you want to take things in such a direction.

How fabulously cute is this Halloween themed Honey Chocolate Cake from 1942? I just love its colour palette and fun decorative touches, plus I'm sure that the use of honey here gives it a really lovely depth of flavour that suits autumn time especially well - plus, you can never go wrong with marshmallow (aka, seven minute) frosting (if you can't, or opt not to, eat eggs, be sure to check out this St. Patrick's Day recipe post of mine with a great alternative option there for seven minute frosting).

Fall and caramel truly go hand-in-hand, so this sweet tasting, elegantly pretty Burnt Sugar Cake (which is, at its heart, a caramel cake) is an ideal choice for all kinds of Halloween and autumn celebrations in general. I'd be tempted to serve pieces of it with warm cooked spiced apples or pears ladled on top for even more of a seasonal kick.

A bevy of scrumptious sounding recipes for different holidays greet you on festive recipe booklet page, but it is the darling little chocolate Halloween Cat Faces with their charming candy corn eyes that we're most after this month (though any of the others would work splendidly for All Hallows' Eve, too!).

{To learn more about a specific recipe and for larger image sizes, please click on an image or the link in the paragraph below it to be taken to its respective page.}

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Even if you usually eat very healthily and/or don't have a huge sweet tooth (two things that apply to me), come Halloween, you simply must indulge, if you celebrate this day. Any or all of the recipes above are terrific way to do just that! T

he caramel cake in particular is calling my name, especially since I know that a gluten-free version will not be hard to whip up, so I might just give that a in the coming week. Which of these seven frighteningly fantastic vintage Halloween recipes appeal to you most of all?

I hope that you're all having a fun filled, terrific week and that you're as excited as I am about Halloween's return! This is such an enjoyable, spirited time of the year and the last great hurrah, in Canada at least, before winter really and truly settles in for another several months - a point that is worth celebrating unto itself!

So go ahead and give yourself permissions to indulge this week - be it with a vintage recipe like the ones here or anything else that your heart desires. Halloween comes but once a year and deserves to be savoured with your favourites candies, treats, and vintage recipes alike!

23 comments:

Devil's Food Cake? Count me in! Aren't vintage recipes presented so nicely? I remember as a child looking through my mom's Woman's Day and Family Circle magazines during the 70s and 80s during the holiday season for recipes. I was always impressed with the beautiful presentations. Nothing to do with food, remember the Virginia Slims ads with Victorian/Edwardian themes? I loved those.

They truly are - and there was usually no, how shall we say, one-ups-manshipness to them (aka, every last ingredient in said recipe wasn't included in the name of it). I'm all for fine dining and fancy recipe names, but there's a great deal to be said for earnest home cooking and the simple pleasures of a great recipe presently beautifully, as these mid-century charmers were.

I do indeed! Wow, that takes me back - including to the days when cigarette ads were the absolute norm in just about any fashion or homemaking related magazine. I grew up with my mom's copies of Canadian Living (sort of like a Canadian version of Women's Day and Family Circle) and loved the ads and articles alike. I wish she still had those, they'd be tons of fun to flip through again. :)

It's an older, but still occasionally seen way of spelling it, which I can clearly remember some of my teachers using back in my grade school days. I personally prefer the word spelled without the apostrophe, but to each there own - it's still Halloween after all and that's what really counts! :)

my blood sugar ´s rising mountain high by only reading this ;-)but yes - on holidays there must be a opulent sweet dish! and after something grilled or roasted it tastes even better :-) at the moment i´m totally in apple pies or tarts in many different versions.....hugs&kisses! <3 <3 <3

Giant yum!!! I'm all about apples and pears this month, too, and will be making caramel apples next week for our annual family Halloween party. They're my favourite treat of the season that I can still safely eat (thank goodness I can - they're sooo good! :)). I agree though that all this sugar would be best tempered by a grilled or baked dish with a lot of oomph to its flavours. Say, a brisket or some pulled pork or sausages, perhaps.

There are so many crazily impressive themed recipes/food projects on the Internet these days (and I can just look at them, imagine my version and one of those "saw it on Pinterest - nailed it!" memes) that I love being reminded of how effective just a spider web design on a cake top can look, or how much fun you can have just decorating sandwiches. Having said that, I agree with you and it is the caramel cake that I'd most like to feast on right now.

Yes, yes and yes again!!! I feel precisely the same way. I love the fancy-as-all-get-out food one sees online (and sometimes in person), but feel most at home with the doable recipes of yore that remind me so much of the food I grew up with and which is often the sore of fare I still make to this day.

Yum!!! Let's both make a caramel cake - I'm thinking I'll add some tinned pumpkin to mine - and celebrate this week on an extra delicious vintage note.

What a lot of charming cakes, especially the cat faces and the devil's cake with spider web. So make cakes, so little time! ;) I will pin a lot of them to my vintage recipes board on Pinterest. A few weeks ago I tried making pumpin pie for the first time in my life. Gosh it was time consuming, but it tasted fabulous, much like vanilla creme brulee. I invited son and his best friend, and they ate a lot and we all had a cosy time together. This weekend is cleaning and ironing weekend. I am home alone, so it is ok. DH is hard working all weekend at his job changing 400 x 4 wheels to winter tires. I know he will be very tired when he comes home. He is the one who plans and arranges it, and sets up the teams. He has done so for many years and is very succesful. He is a VW mechanic. Wishing you a lovely and more exciting weekend than mine, dear. :)

Aren't the kitties just precious!!! I love when Halloween is cute like that. I've never been one for extreme horror, so I like to keep my spookiness on the kawaii side. :)

How awesome that you made pumpkin pie for the first time. Indeed, it can take a while, especially if you can't find canned pumpkin puree (I couldn't when I lived in Ireland). If you'd ever like me to send some your way from Canada, just let me know, and I'd be happy to do so.

This weekend is a busy one for us well and I'm glad, because it will help the days pass all the more quickly until our beloved October 31st returns in precisely a week's time. Yippee!!!

You have canned pumpkin? Amazing. I halved it, baked it and scraped it out, very soft. Then I seasoned it and in the blender it went. But the dough had to be put in the freezer twice and be baked twice. My patience was running wild. XOXO :)

We do indeed - it's been a North American staple for decades now. I know that it's incredibly hard to find in Europe though, which is strange to me, because pumpkin is eaten in at least some countries there, plus you'd think with the influence of NA foods and holiday alike around the world, at least a few shops would stock it.

You can also cook a pumpkin in the mircowave (cut up), which saves a bit of time. I still do it from scratch sometimes myself, as it's enjoyable to know you made something the especially old fashioned way, but usually these days I do opt for the organic GF pumpkin puree that I can get at a couple of health food stores in the area.

Jessica, I absolutely love these vintage recipes and images! I remember fondly when I was a little girl, my mother would sometimes try out the recipes, and they always turned out so well! And coupon values back then were like 3 cents! But then again, the food and salaries were much less as well! Thank you so much for sharing! Oh, and my birthday is this Tuesday...October 27th, and I have a special post prepared for that day. You are more than welcome to join in the celebration, if you would like to. Hugs. :)

Hi lovely Linda, thank you very much for sharing some of your heartwarming childhood Halloween memories with me (us) here. Happiest upcoming birthday wishes!!! I will certainly swing by on Tuesday and check out the celebratory fun.

Amazing recipes! That sandwich filing really does sound... Interesting! All the cakes though... I don't ever really crave cake but I'm craving it now. I've never had Devil's Food Cake - I'm not even sure I know what it is, but I love the simple spooky decor of that cake :) x

As you know, I share your love of Halloween. And these recipes are fun to look at. I never thought I'd enjoy simply looking at recipes but, once again, you've opened my eyes. Reading this post makes me nostalgic for my youth, brings back fond memories of my mom, and inspires me to get creative in the kitchen. In short, everything you want from a blog!

I particularly like the kitten biscuits and the cat sandwiches. My mum used to make cat buns for our birthday parties, white icing, smarties for eyes, halved jelly diamonds for ears and angellica for whiskers. They were great! Have you got your Halloween menu all planned out?

Still figuring out some of the details of our Halloween menu. I usually stick with light fair (appetizers, snacks, etc) and tons of sweet treats on the big day itself, so that folks can just graze at their own pace. Are you making any festive foods yourself this year?

I like those cat sandwiches. I'm planning to make a mummy-face cake for my workmates this year - I need to work on that tonight, as I'll be serving it tomorrow. I saw a great method for mummy biscuits (cookies) online, so I might have a go at those at some point. It doesn't need to be Halloween for that sort of thing in my house :-)

How adorable, err, I mean spooky :), sounding! I really like mummy themed foods, decor and costumes. One of these years, I should go as one myself (I've never done so). So true about not having to actually be October 31st for festive themed food. I've been known to test drive Halloween recipes throughout the year, too.

I'm Jessica, a lifelong lover of all things antique and vintage, especially those from the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

This blog is my visual scrapbook in which I record and share my thoughts on the multitude of sources, people and products that inspire and feed a modern gal's addiction to the past. I also post about the vintage clothes, hairstyles and make-up looks that I adore wearing.

Stay a spell and have a blast as we explore the incomparably fantastic world of vintage history and fashion together.

All images used on this site are credited to their original posters/creators/sources,
however if at any time you would prefer not to see one of your images here, please email me and I'll take it down right away.

PS...I just wanted to say thank you very much for visiting and to tell you that you're equal parts awesome and beautiful.